SARS potentially misled the public about revenue collection in 2016/2017

3 April 2017

The South African Revenue Service Commissioner, Tom Moyane, potentially misled South Africans when he claimed that the revenue service reached its revised target of R1.14 trillion for the 2016/17 fiscal year.

The commissioner claimed he would deal with "the elephant in the room", but then did exactly the opposite, and did not disclose the amount owing in VAT refunds as of 31 March 2017.

The commissioner simply cannot claim to have reached the revised target if there are significant amounts outstanding in VAT refunds, which we know amounted to R19.6 billion as of 28 February 2017.

I will, therefore, write to the SARS commissioner, Tom Moyane, requesting him to disclose the total amount of VAT refunds outstanding as of 31 March 2017.

We cannot have a situation where the SARS potentially misleads the public about its performance in terms of revenue collection into the 2016/17 fiscal year.

Issued by Alf Lees, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Finance, 3 April 2017